According to Colleen Q. Newquist, the State of Washington (U.S.A.) has approached Canada to inquire about the possibility of dual citizenship. According to Newquist:

It’s not that we don’t like being part of America. But in the global economy, we want to keep our options open. We don’t see our American citizenship as something restrictive, but rather, as only a part of our identity in the increasingly international contemporary world.

How likely is it that Washington state will be able to succeed in this unusual request? On the one hand, Canada has always had “very open and accepting laws regarding dual citizenship.”1 On the other hand, as legal expert Robert Q. Britt points out, “it is not at all clear exactly what it would mean for a state to have dual citizenship, or even to have citizenship at all. I might be an American citizen, but a state, even if it is a legal person, is not a citizen in the ordinary sense. Accommodating this request may require a rethinking of personhood, citizenship, and what it means to be a Canadian.”

The Canadian courts are, reportedly, considering if and how such a request might be honored. One quick and easy solution, suggested by alert reader Loretta Q. Vigil, might be for the state of Washington to marry a Canadian province. Rumor has it that Washington State has always been pretty cozy with British Columbia.